Last week Majd 7016 climbed to the top floor of a really tall house in Khan Yunis, to call to ask me to help organize an evening for his battalion. After three and a half months of reserve duty in which he didn't answer my calls, nor the stupid videos I made sure to send him ("Star Wars" jokes ", chickens dancing samba, Rachel Rottner calling Harvard), it was like minimum Beyoncé called me. Leave
Beyoncé, like Michael Jordan called me! Leave Michael Jordan, like Idan Amadi called me! Leave Idan Amadi (sorry, Idan ), as if my older brother had called me!
Even from the tallest building in Khan Yunis, the reception was a bit disturbed, but my brother had enough time to ask me to take care of the music and treats.
We hung up the phone, and then I started running in circles and texting everyone I know.
Obviously, the easiest thing for me was to appear myself, but if it's easy - what did we do with it?
The big question for me was: who deserves(!) to perform on my brother's regimental night?
Do I go for a hive reunion, or should I bring Freddie Mercury back to life?
And if so, how do I find out what Kevin's technical specifications are?
After two days, the regiment's general officer called me to reassure me that the army had already closed someone over our heads and assigned an artist to perform for the regiment, and now what he needs from me is my second specialty - kosher fur food stalls. Of course.
Here, several amazing women (and one man) rallied to my aid with the speed of light, and I will use the column without shame to make an advertisement for them: Keren Arbiv, the owner of "Sicilian Ice Cream", who donated and continues to donate huge amounts of high-quality and insanely delicious ice cream;
the outstanding confectioner Inbar Atis, who specially made exquisite cakes;
the unstoppable Inbal Sheinfeld, who showed up with the children Dobi and Lavi, with a machine of cotton candy and lots of candy;
Shmarit Elifaz Aryeh, who organized and bought and achieved and that I would like her to resign from her job and instead become the prime minister;
Mittal from the Central Beverage Company, for the generous donation (my brother immediately joined the Cola Zero infusion);
And Sharit Meirovitch from the Lev Jaffa Youth Center, who, without getting confused, loaded my car with a popcorn machine.
When I asked on Twitter who would volunteer to come help with the serving - Yanon Amadi, an ultra-Orthodox from Kiryat Yuval, immediately volunteered, who thanked me(!) for the opportunity to help(!) and came with the children, Ilai and Uri, and here I am writing this and in tears of gratitude.
You are human beings, not a silver platter, illustration: Talia Driggs
• • •
Battalion 7016, welcome back.
Yesterday my brother asked me if I wanted to say a few words, and I told him no, that I didn't want to be pushed, because this is your evening.
But then I realized that I do want to say a few words, and I do want to push myself.
I want to start by saying thank you.
Thank you to Gadi, MP of the headquarters, who asked me to make a "celebration greetings video" for you, and I had to ask all my colleagues for greetings as if I were 12 years old and had a bat mitzvah. May God help me, the padiha. To everyone who didn't take a greeting for me, I I want to say: I wrote, and I'm Polish, so I keep this note until the grave.
To you in the battalion, I want to say that you deserve a vacation.
You won't get it, but you deserve it.
You are now returning from one front, and most of you are going to another front - to deal with work, studies or home.
And there is nothing in the ashes between these fronts, in all of them you are expected to "deal".
I see that you have haircuts, phone repair, and social security counseling on your schedule tomorrow, but I don't see a single booth that offers "counseling to deal with the fact that your heart is a little broken because they brought in some jerk to replace you at work," or "a conflict resolution course because your wife expects you to replace The baby is in a diaper and you really want to drink this coffee for a second, Gitti!!!"
• • •
You are returning from Khan Yunis.
It's only a few tens of kilometers from here, but by the same token you could land from outer space.
You will wake up tomorrow morning, and it will be fucking weird to be among all these people again, poking their noses in traffic under a huge sign that says "Together we will win".
And you will laugh a little, because there are those who win and there are those at home who eat pita pizza in front of the news.
You will want to know what happened here at this time, because life did not stop.
Oh-oh!
They didn't stop at all!
Many reservists come back and want to be updated, so they open the news, scroll through social networks and ask themselves: "What is this? Nothing has changed? Still swimming in the juice of the garbage as if it were October 6?"
But the media perceives its role differently, not as responsible for national morale, and social networks have always highlighted everything that is provocative and ugly.
No one gets a ton of likes and exposure from saying "relatively nice things" about other people.
I didn't just ask to speak today, and I didn't just ask to speak to you "on behalf of the citizens".
I didn't do a survey, I didn't go and ask people, but I ask that you trust me.
I've been around enough, I've met enough people of all kinds and from all places in the last few months, and I ask that you just trust me.
This is a message from us, the citizens, to you, who are returning from the reserves:
We appreciate you, and we thank you.
And we are together, even if it may not seem like it.
We are together in loving you.
You will hear these words a lot, especially in bank and insurance advertisements, but you will know that they took it from us, and not the other way around.
These words are not empty.
We are full of gratitude, and every nerve in our body is screaming to tell you, to show you.
We so want to repay you for everything you have done for us.
• • •
Dear battalion, I want to thank you, but more importantly: I want to ask for your forgiveness.
retroactively.
We are going to disappoint you, and probably more than once.
The last few months have been one long week of an obviously dysfunctional family for us.
The mourner is a member of the family.
The fog is so thick, the uncertainty so vast, and we get lost in it.
Helplessness!
We tried to lead a life, we tried to raise children while you are there, risking your life, while there are abductees there.
that there are kidnappings.
There is a little baby there.
The wound is still open and bleeding every day, and we don't poke at it on purpose - it's the world that comes back and wounds us.
I want to ask you, as if you haven't done enough by now, to be forgiving towards us.
We had a hard time without you.
You saved the country.
You saved us.
And you are not a silver tray - you are human beings, who will now have to take the car for a test or drop a tenner on dental treatments.
So take my words, I ask, find some drawer in your heart - and put them inside.
In two days, next week, you will need them.
Don't forget them.
Just like we don't forget what you did for us in the last months.
Not now and never.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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